It's an improvement over the last six months—the biggest sequential improvement in five years—and less terrible than expected, but still not good. Sprint thinks it'll be better next quarter, but that $478 million loss gots to sting. [PC Mag]

Nintendo sold 5.75 million Wiis over the past six months, versus 10.1 million a year ago. Which is why Nintendo finally got around to cutting the price of the Wii—to move more units, even though that sliced into profits. (Interestingly, it shows Wii sales finally dipped below a million a month, if barely, and just how insanely profitable the Wii is for Nintendo.) If it makes Nintendo feel any better, the Xbox 360 is the only console that's actually seen growth this year, in the US, anyway, thanks to its own price cut.

So, um, next stop: Wiis in multiple colors. Hey, it's worked for Nintendo like a million times before. That, or you know, that Wii HD people are so fond of talking about. [WSJ

"Frankly, I think people are still just trying to catch up with the first iPhone 2 years ago."

And that's the one without apps. Wa-pow.

Update 2: Q & A time.

Analyst dude asks what Apple thinks of wannabes "like Android." Answer: Apple "feels very good about suiting up against anyone" since they've got 85,000 apps. COO Tim Cook says, "Frankly, I think people are still just trying to catch up with the first iPhone 2 years ago."

Man, this is the most boring ass Apple earnings call ever. Nobody's asked a stupid tablet question to elicit a really snippy reply from Tim Cook, which has pretty much ruined it for me.

The earnings call starts in 25 minutes, and we'll be bringing it to you live.

There's some funky accounting going on now with some new accounting guidelines that lets them officially recognize the revenue from an iPhone, iPod touch and Apple TV (stuff they've been reporting revenue from over 24-month periods previously), so that's something to watch for over the next quarter or so. Business Insider explains what all that means.

Update: $9.87 billion was the second highest revenue ever, next to last Christmas season.

Mac's growing 17 percent, while the rest of the market only growing at 2 percent. Laptops are over 74 percent of Macs sold. Desktops are dead, biatches. Most educational Macs shipped ever, they're indoctrinating our youth. Half of Macs sold in Apple Stores still sold to first-time Mac buyers.

Snow Leopard upgrade box sales double Leopard's at release.

10.2 million iPods sold, down from 11 million a year ago (down 8 percent). iPod touch sales were up 100 percent though, showing, again, where the growth is. This is crazy: 50 percent of recent iPod buyers were buying their first iPod. They've still got 70 percent of the MP3 player market.

7.4 million iPhones. Half a billion app downloads, weeee.

They're opening a new Apple Store on the Upper West Side in NY, which means Genius Bar reservations should start being slightly easier to snag than one for Momofuku Ko.

Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

Most Profitable Quarter Ever; Record Mac and iPhone Sales

CUPERTINO, Calif. Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter ended September 26, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.6 percent, up from 34.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter's revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their estimated economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $12.25 billion of "Adjusted Sales" and $2.85 billion of "Adjusted Net Income."

Apple sold 3.05 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing seven percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

"We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010."

"We are delighted with our September quarter and fiscal 2009 results," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "For the full year, we grew revenue by 12 percent and net income by 18 percent in extraordinarily challenging times. Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.70 to $1.78."

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q4 2009 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple's standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on October 19, 2009 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq409/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

Of AT&T's 1.4 million new customers, around 800,000 came aboard with the iPhone (given that of the 2.4 million iPhones they moved, "more than a third" were customers new to AT&T), continuing a long-running trend . That is, growth heavily fueled by the iPhone.

Also, AT&T moved a total of 3.5 million integrated 3G devices (that is phones with 3G + QWERTY keyboards), including the iPhone. That means the iPhone accounted for roughly 68 percent of those sales. Okay, but that includes smarter dumbphones like the LG Neon or Samsung Magnet. Meaning it forms an even higher percentage of legit smartphones sales—like vs. BlackBerry or Nokia's E71 or Windows Mobile.

Which translates directly into money: Wireless revenues were up 37.2 percent, driven by "messaging, internet access, access to applications and services," or precisely those phones. That has to frighten them at some level—they're deeply dependent on the iPhone.

Overall, AT&T stands at 79.6 million subscribers, up 6.7 million from last year. Verizon's not releasing their full earnings breakdown until next week, but they did report that they stand at 87 million customers, adding 1.1 million this past quarter. Verizon's an interesting contrast, since they've maintained a similar (but slightly slower) growth clip as AT&T even since the latter became the exclusive iPhone carrier in the US.

Personally, I'm most curious to see Sprint's earnings for a glimpse at what effect (if any) the Palm Pre has on the continuous slide they've been on for what feels like forever now.

[AT&T]

To fill in some numbers behind the percentages, that's 10.2 million iPods and 5.2 iPhones. Mac sales were up slightly—2.6 4 percent (they sold 2.6 million Macs)—indicating the economy wasn't entirely the culprit behind flattening iPod sales. Also, these numbers are from before the iPhone 3GS launch—so maybe they indicate certain winds a-shifting (even considering we're comparing iPhone 3G sales this past quarter to the sales of original iPhone at $399 last year). TechCrunch also notes that that's twice as many iPhones as Macs—pointing at another kind of paradigm shift at Apple.

Will we hear from Steve? Probably not, but you never know.

The Call
Details on the iPod decline: The drop in iPod sales was entirely limited to the "traditional MP3 players," the Classic, nano and shuffle. Apple says they expected this, saying it's "one of the reasons we developed the iPhone and iPod touch. We expect traditional MP3 players to decline over time as we cannibalize ourselves" with the iPhone and touch. Translation: Apple basically just said the traditional iPods are walking dinosaurs. To that point, the iPod touch actually grew 130 percent, making the sales decline of the other iPods that much more severe, since the 7 percent drop includes the touch. Also, Apple expects that trend to continue going into next quarter—more iPod touches, fewer regular iPods.

Interestingly, 50 percent of traditional iPods sold are to people who've never owned one before. They've still got over 70 percent of the MP3 player market.

They're unable to make enough iPhone 3GSes to meet demand, since they've sold a million in the first three days.

Tim Cook on their relationship with AT&T: "I think it's an excellent relationship and we're very happy with it."

They won't break down what the mix of $99 iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS sales are, and it's too soon to figure out what people's iPhone purchasing habits are.

Talking about cheaper MacBooks, Tim reiterates for the millionth time that they won't put an Apple brand on a product that doesn't have their "legendary ease of use" and isn't totally super awesome.

The App Store rules all other stores with 65,000 apps—Nokia, RIM and Android are puny.

Hey look, it's the netbook question again: "At this point we don't see a way to build a great product for this $399, $499...for this kind of pricepoint unit. Some customers, maybe many customers buying these become disappointed and disenchanted buying these." So Apple is "going to keep giving people the best" like a MacBook Pro for $800 less than you used to be able to get one.

Asked if the iPhone is constrained by carriers with limited capacity (read: AT&T), Tim Cook replies, "without talking about specific ones, I see them making more investments to have faster networks and see them being very happy about" making more money.

People are getting aggressive! A straight up question about the tablet (sorry, a "mobile device" with a larger screen) gets a response from Tim Cook that first dallies, "without discounting anything for the future," before he continues "I think most customers buying a portable want a full-featured notebook." And "many people won't be happy" with the crappy experience of a netbook, so Apple is "only going to play in something that's very innovative that we're very proud of."

Asked about better separating good apps from crappy ones, Tim Cook says, "We're always looking for ways to categorize apps differently and we have some ideas...we realize there's an opportunity there for further improvement."

Apple Reports Third Quarter Results

Best Non-Holiday Quarter Revenue and Earnings in Apple History

CUPERTINO, Calif., July 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 third quarter ended June 27, 2009. The Company posted revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.3 percent, up from 34.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter's revenue.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone(TM) and Apple TV® over their estimated economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $9.74 billion of "Adjusted Sales" and $1.94 billion of "Adjusted Net Income."

Apple sold 2.6 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a four percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhones sold were 5.2 million, representing 626 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

"We're making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We're thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year."

"We're extremely pleased to report record non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings and quarterly cash flow from operations of $2.3 billion," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.18 to $1.23."

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q3 2009 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple's standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on July 21, 2009 at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq309/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

[Apple, Image via Macblogz]

Even Microsoft, who was originally losing $126 per 360, has making money on every Xbox sold for a while now. Poor Sony. Just think of everything you could buy with $40, like a day with Rachel Ray. [Adriansang via Joystiq Image: Flickr/Shagy6six6]

What a very unhappy birthday week. Its original charter, with the credo,"we must avoid problems which befall large corporations," and the drive to "create and introduce technologies which large corporations cannot match" is exactly what Sony needs to follow now. We think Sir Howard gets it, but is that really enough?

Take a moment to relive the glory days, won't you? [AllThingsD, Image: Flickr/Shagy6six6]

CORRECTION: Sprint lost 182,000 customers during the first quarter of this year, not 1.3 million. It lost 1.3 million customers the previous quarter. Apologies for the error.

The talks with Ericsson could still fall through, but the $2 billion outsourcing agreement—which would have Ericsson maintain its cell sites—could save it a bunch of money it spends on "cost of services." The thought is that it could use the extra money on things like products and people, and outsourcing this kind of work is common in Europe and Asia.

The 1.3 million 182,000 customers it bled are still unique to Sprint—every other carrier is still adding customers every quarter while Sprint loses 'em. As tough as it was for everybody last quarter—with Microsoft's profits shrinking over 30 percent, Mac sales flattening—Verizon and AT&T managed to add 1.3 million and 1.2 million customers, respectively.

Can the Pre really save a carrier this badly wounded? Saving one nearly dead company, Palm, will be a feat. Two would be a miracle. [WSJ, WSJ]

What we've seen so far of their Android devices seems promising, but they'd better be so hot they melt children's screaming faces from across the room if they're going to bring back Moto, who's been officially junky for a while. [InfoWeek]